W, M, L, L, L, L...

My wife is an excellent teacher, motivator and mother. I have four young girls and I hope every one of them turn out to be just like her. I love it when I come home from work and find Holly teaching them some valuable lesson that she has learned from her life.

For example, I walked in the door the other day and saw my wife dancing furiously in front of London and Brooklyn. She was alternating between shaking her face in their faces and then turning and shaking her butt in their faces. And as if that was not impressive enough, during her dancing, she kept throwing out what looked to me like gang signs.

I know I should have asked what was going on, but it was too entertaining not to just stop and stare. In actuality, I found out later that the gang signs were not gang signs at all, but were simply her hands making the shapes of Ws, Ls and Ms, which stood for whatever, major loser, loser, loser.

In the midst of this critical and timely instruction, I was able to quickly piece together that my daughter had been treated unfairly at school and had been called a loser, loser that day at recess.

A true saint, Holly quickly told my daughter that this action said more about the other person’s lack of self esteem than it said about my daughter and re-counted a story when she was also attacked by a woman who was insecure

Although similar, Holly’s trouble began not in elementary school, but at the piano bar two weeks earlier when a woman who was being pushed to the back of the room said that Holly may or may not have a stain on her pants and told her she should go to the bathroom and check it out.

Being a man, I was unaccustomed to this type of female warfare, but was quickly informed that this is standard course for cat fights and that women will always result to such levels in a heated discussion.

Holly, knowing that she had no such stain of her pants, thanked the woman and then proceeded to dance in front of her in a rapid motion that made me feel like I was watching Bring It On 4, the Piano Bar Edition. She elegantly shook her face in the girls face and then turned and shook her butt in the girl’s face, just as she was doing to Brooklyn and London on this particular occasion.

Upon hearing this story, Brooklyn immediately felt better and was resolved to deal with her bully the next day at school, not through violence, but through the art and expression of dance.

Whenever possible, Holly and I have vowed to provide our children with opportunities to excel in the arts. We believe that it shows a level of class and sophistication that can sometimes be lacking in today’s environment.

Holly told Brooklyn that if this girl ever called her a loser again, she should simply get in her face and dance, while making the signs of W, M, L, L, L, L. Holly felt that throwing in the two extra L’s would provide the ammunition Brooklyn needed to really make an impression that she was not to be messed with again.

And while the jury is still out on Brooklyn’s retaliation tactics, there was proof that no good deed goes unpunished last night when Sydney came to me in tears, saying, “Brooklyn and London did the butt, butt, shake, shake thing to me and knocked me down.”

I, and this is really the point of the entire story, was forced to call a family meeting and create a hard and fast rule that we will only condone the use of butt, butt, shake, shake on individuals who live outside of our home and, furthermore, we would all agree to save it for the most grave situations.

Each of my children then took an oath to keep the butt shaking to a minimum and each agreed to only use it outside of the four walls of our home, which only serves to remind me of what an excellent father I am and further prove that although we all have butts, they should not always be shook.